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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
By Jim Bertel
Washington, D.C.
23 November 2006
watch Lebanon update
Lebanon is in the midst of three days of mourning for slain1 Lebanese politician Pierre Gemayel, whose assassination2 Tuesday could threaten the country's fragile democracy. The prominent politician was buried on Thursday. As VOA's Jim Bertel reports Tuesday's killing3 could have implications beyond Lebanon's borders.
Demonstrators hold aloft a poster of slain Lebanese cabinet minister Pierre Gemayal |
The United States called the killing an act of terrorism and intimidation5 against Lebanon's elected government. On Wednesday President Bush phoned Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and pledged to support Lebanese independence from, what the White House called, the encroachments of Iran and Syria. But the president stopped short of blaming either government for the killing.
Gemayal's death only deepens the political crisis surrounding Lebanon's government, which was severely6 weakened after the month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel in southern Lebanon earlier this year.
Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East scholar at Sarah Lawrence College in the eastern state of New York believes Tuesday's attack was an attempt to further destabilize Lebanon's fragile democracy. "The killing of Pierre Gemayal pours gasoline on an already raging fire. And it puts Lebanon that much closer to a major civil war."
But Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy expert at The Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, says rather than being a decisive turning point, it is just one more sign of how troubled Lebanon is.
"That means we obviously have to work to help it recover economically from the summer war. It also means we have to keep pressuring Syria to keep its hands off [Lebanon]. I'm not sure we have any ability to stop that but we should certainly be supporting intelligence efforts to try to figure out Syria's role and then hold them accountable if they are in fact guilty. Those are the sorts of policy tools we have,” said O’Hanlon. “But they are really the same ones we would have been thinking of using, or should have been thinking of using, even last week before this assassination."
Gemayel's killing comes amid a power struggle between Prime Minister Siniora's government and pro-Syrian factions7 led by Hezbollah over a U.N.-backed tribunal to investigate the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The Bush administration says it will seek to add Gemayel's murder to the list of cases to be prosecuted8 by the tribunal.
1 slain | |
杀死,宰杀,杀戮( slay的过去分词 ); (slay的过去分词) | |
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2 assassination | |
n.暗杀;暗杀事件 | |
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3 killing | |
n.巨额利润;突然赚大钱,发大财 | |
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4 condemning | |
v.(通常因道义上的原因而)谴责( condemn的现在分词 );宣判;宣布…不能使用;迫使…陷于不幸的境地 | |
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5 intimidation | |
n.恐吓,威胁 | |
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6 severely | |
adv.严格地;严厉地;非常恶劣地 | |
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7 factions | |
组织中的小派别,派系( faction的名词复数 ) | |
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8 prosecuted | |
a.被起诉的 | |
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